Security alarm systems comprise component parts designed to detect, determine and alert for unauthorized entry, activity, or other events. A security alarm system can detect events like motion, smoke or sound and then send a notification about the event, usually to a remote, centralized monitoring, center, commonly referred to as a “central station” who will then notify responsible police or fire departments. The security alarm system components that detect activity are sensors that include door and window disturbance contacts, motion sensors, glass break detectors and panic buttons.
Sensors of legacy systems are often connected to the premises' security alarm system controller, most often referred to as an “alarm panel”, through wires although, starting in 1966 with U.S. Pat. No. 3,482,037 sensors were, in some installations, connected to the alarm panel with short range radio—“wireless”. In addition to sensors, a security system will typically include a keypad to enable an operator to control the security alarm system. The keypad typically installed near an entrance or exit of the monitored premise to facilitate the operator's ability to arm and disarm the system quickly upon entering the premises.
By using a numerical code the operator can arm or activate the system as well as examine information about an event. Most modem keypads have an illuminated display that displays the status of the security alarm system with alphanumeric text. When a reportable event is detected by a security alarm system it typically perform two primary actions in response to the event. The security alarm system can communicate to a remote central station monitoring center, and it can optionally activate alarm annunciators located at or near the monitored premises. Most legacy security alarm systems communicate events to a remote alarm central station monitoring center with tones via a dial-up wire-line telephone connection using the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).
Some of the more modern prior-art security alarm systems communicate events to a remote alarm central station monitoring center with data messages via network connections, including the Internet or private network. In some cases, these network connections are conveyed by prior-art over commercial wireless data transport connections, such as cellular based, including such systems that utilize the GSM, CDMA, UMTS and LTE standards, using a dialer or communications port designed for that purpose. The dialer port being designed for the conveyance of alarm data has very little, if any, control capability.
Typical security alarm systems incorporate a keypad, as mentioned above, with connection to the premises' security alarm panel, via wires utilizing a serial data protocol that is, usually, proprietary the specific brand of security alarm system controller. An exemplary application would be the Ademco keypad model 6139. Some more modern legacy systems use keypads that connect to the alarm panel via a short range wireless connection instead of using a wired serial bus. An example of such is U.S. Pat. No. 5,625,338 that teaches a two-way wireless keypad that uses short range radio between the keypad and the alarm panel. Patent '338 simply teaches elimination of local premise wiring and fails to teach remote wireless communication of the keypad.
It is advantageous to in able the remote alarm central station monitoring center, either directly or through an intermediate server, to be able to effect more control on to legacy security alarm system through a cost effective adjunct retrofit capability. U.S. Pat. No. 7,855,635 teaches one method of enabling a remote server to effect more control on as legacy security alarm system by connecting a remote server to a legacy alarm security system by interfacing a communications processor to the serial bus designed for interconnecting a premise alarm system's alarm panel to a co-located keypad, analyzing the serial digital protocol signals to attempt to determine the type of serial digital protocol being used and then interpreting the commands to be suitable for use for communication to a remote server over selected wired or wireless public telecommunications networks. Unfortunately the method of '635 fails in that it is expensive to install due to labor costs associated with hardwire connections and failure prone and may encounter slow connections, due to the complexity of hardwire connections, as well as the complexity associated with interpretations of proprietary communication protocols. It is a goal of this invention to resolve these and other problems.